Port and ping monitors

When you need to know whether a service is accepting connections — or whether a host is even reachable — reach for a TCP port or ping monitor. Both measure connectivity and latency rather than the content of a response.

You’ll create both under Monitors in the top navigation.

TCP port monitors

A port monitor opens a TCP socket to a host and port. If the connection is accepted, the monitor is up and Aloft records how long the connect took. If the connection is refused, times out, or errors, the monitor is down.

This is the right tool for services that speak something other than HTTP — a database, a mail server, an SSH daemon, a game server — anywhere “is the port open?” is the question.

Create a port monitor

1. Go to Monitors and choose New monitor.
2. Set Type to TCP port.
3. Enter the Hostname / IP of the service (just the host, no scheme or path — for example db.internal.example.com).
4. Enter the Port (1–65535).
5. Pick an Interval, choose alert channels, and select Create monitor.

What “reachable” means

“Reachable” here means a TCP connection completed successfully — the remote host answered on that port. The monitor does not send or inspect any application data; it only confirms the port is open and measures the connect latency.

Common ports

Service	Port
HTTP	80
HTTPS	443
SSH	22
SMTP	25
PostgreSQL	5432
MySQL	3306
Redis	6379

Ping monitors

A ping monitor checks whether a host or IP responds to an ICMP echo (“ping”). If the host replies, the monitor is up and Aloft records the round-trip latency. If there’s no reply before the timeout, it’s down.

Use a ping monitor for basic “is this machine alive and on the network?” checks — routers, servers, IoT devices, anything that should answer a ping.

Create a ping monitor

1. Go to Monitors and choose New monitor.
2. Set Type to Ping.
3. Enter the Hostname / IP to reach (for example 192.0.2.10 or gateway.example.com).
4. Pick an Interval, choose alert channels, and select Create monitor.

Choosing port or ping vs. HTTP

• Use an HTTP / HTTPS or keyword monitor when you’re watching a website or API and care about status codes or page content. See HTTP and keyword monitors.
• Use a TCP port monitor when you care that a specific service is accepting connections, but it doesn’t speak HTTP (or you only need to know the port is open).
• Use a ping monitor when you only need to know that a host is reachable on the network at all.

Note

Port and ping monitors measure connectivity and latency, not content. A port that’s open or a host that answers a ping tells you the service is reachable — not that the application behind it is healthy. For that, use an HTTP or keyword monitor.

Tip

Some networks and hosts block ICMP, which makes a ping monitor report down even though the host is fine. If pings are unreliable for a target, a TCP port monitor against a known-open port is often a more dependable reachability check.